534 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 64 



picture of the conical skin-covered tipis of the nomadic Plains tribes 

 was a crude engraving after Titian Peale's field sketch on Major 

 Long's expedition of 1819-20, which appeared in Edwin James' ac- 

 count of those explorations (James, 1823). (See pi. 3, fig. 1.) The 

 first reproduction of a Plains Indian warrior on horseback probably 

 was the lithograph of Peter Rindisbacher's drawing "Sioux Warrior 

 Charging" that appeared in the October 1829 issue of The American 

 Turf Register and Sporting Magazine (pi. 4). Young Rindisbacher 

 had ample opportunities to observe Plains Indian warriors and buffalo 

 hunters during nearly 5 years' residence in Lord Selkirk's settlement 

 on the Red River of the North, 1821-26. His lively portrayal of 

 Indians on horseback chasing buffalo was offered as the colored litho- 

 graphic frontispiece in the first volume of Thomas McKenney and 

 James Hall's classic History of the Indian Tribes of North Atnerica 

 (1836^14). (See pi. 5.) However, of the 120 finely printed colored 

 lithographs of Indians in that handsome work only a small proportion 

 portray Plains Indians, and all of these were portraits of members 

 of western delegations to Washington, the originals of which had 

 been executed by Saint-Memin, King, or the latter's pupil George 

 Cooke. 



In 1839 Samuel George Morton of Philadelphia, now known as the 

 father of physical anthropology in America, published his major work. 

 Crania Americana. Its frontispiece is a lithographic reproduction of 

 John Neagle's portrait of the Omaha head chief Big Elk, a prominent 

 member of the 1821 deputation from the Great Plains. Morton ex- 

 plained this selection : "Among the multitude of Indian portraits which 

 have come under my notice, I know of no one that embraces more 

 characteristic traits than this, as seen in the retreating forehead, the 

 low brow, the dull and seemingly unobservant eye, the large aquiline 

 nose, the high cheek bones, full mouth and chin and angular face" 

 (Morton, 1839, p. 292) . (See pi. 3, fig. 2.) 



The first illustrated schoolbook on American history was Rev. 

 Charles A. Goodrich's History of the United States. First published 

 in 1823, it went through 150 printings by 1847. However, Noah 

 Webster's History of the United States was a popular competitor from 

 its first appearance in 1832. The small and sometimes indistinct 

 woodcuts in these books are not numerous. Nevertheless, some of them 

 include Indians. A few scenes in Webster's history were adopted from 

 Jolm White's 16th-century drawings of Indian life in coastal North 

 Carolina. But the scenes depicting early explorers' meetings with 

 Indians, the making of Indian treaties, and the conduct of Indian wars 

 seem to be based largely upon the imaginations of their anonymous 

 creators. Plains Indians are conspicuously absent. They had yet to 

 make an indelible mark upon American history in their determined 



